Ivanka Trump email scandal: Lock her up or leave it alone?

The Washington Post is reporting Ivanka Trump has used a personal email account to send government-related emails. Trump claims to have been ignorant of White House ethical rules. According to the Post, she missed reminders of ethical rules and reminders because she was not using her government email. President Donald Trump has been calling for Hillary Clinton's immediate incarceration for similar actions since 2016. Will he do the same for his daughter?

PERSPECTIVES

The Washington Post broke the news of Ivanka Trump's potential ethics breach after a liberal watchdog group requested records that led the White House to the discovery.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump's repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughter's practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. He attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her "Crooked Hillary" for using a personal email account as secretary of state.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump's personal emails -- and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

...Using personal emails for government business could violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all official White House communications and records be preserved as a permanent archive of each administration. It can also increase the risk that sensitive government information could be mishandled or hacked, revealing government secrets and risking harm to diplomatic relations and secret operations.

...Trump had used her personal email for official business far more frequently than known, according to people familiar with the administration's review -- a fact that remained a closely held secret inside the White House.

"She was the worst offender in the White House," said a former senior U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.

The Washington Post reports that a spokesman for Trump's lawyer, Peter Marijanian, has stated there are clear differences between Ivanka's use of a personal email account and Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account. They are two completely different things and should not be linked in any way.

Mirijanian said Ivanka Trump turned over all her government-related emails months ago so they could be stored permanently with other White House records.

And he stressed that her email use was different from that of Clinton, who had a private email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. At one point, an archive of thousands of Clinton's emails was deleted by a computer specialist amid a congressional investigation.

"Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted," Mirijanian said.

Like Trump, Clinton also said she was unaware of or misunderstood the rules. However, Clinton relied solely on a private email system as secretary of state, bypassing government servers entirely.

Both Trump and Clinton relied on their personal attorneys to review their private emails and determine which messages should be retained as government records.

Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD. Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved!

However, the watchdog group, American Oversight, were quick to point out that this administration has made their views on personal email accounts abundantly clear. Per CBS News:

The discovery was prompted by public records requests from the liberal watchdog group American Oversight. The group's executive director, Austin Evers, said in a statement, "The president's family is not above the law" and he called on Congress to investigate.

"For more than two years, President Trump and senior leaders in Congress have made it very clear that they view the use of personal email servers for government business to be a serious offense that demands investigation and even prosecution, and we expect the same standard will be applied in this case," he said.

"Lock her up!" was always more of a turn of phrase, a chant to get the people going. It wasn't really a directive with any sort of authority.

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